One-third of workers have access to same-sex health benefits

WASHINGTON — In the first comprehensive count of domestic partner benefits by a federal government agency, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that about one-third of all workers had access to health care benefits for same-sex partners.

Bureau officials added two questions about domestic partner benefits for same-sex couples to the National Compensation Survey, a sample of 17,000 businesses and local governments, as a response to growing public interest in the topic, said Philip Doyle, assistant commissioner at the agency. The results were made public on Tuesday.

Thirty-three percent of state and local government employees had access to domestic partner health benefits for same-sex couples, the survey found, slightly higher than the 29 percent of employees in private companies.

Gary Gates, a demographer at the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the data collection “reflects contemporary reality of what constitutes a compensation package.” It will also allow researchers to track whether laws on same-sex marriage affect the availability of domestic partner benefits.